Tell it to the owners. They don't want minor leagues. What they really want is for college baseball to be the minor leagues.
But they want to cut the minor leagues as much as possible. It's why they were already talking about it prior to COVID. It's why they were quibbling over minor league pay. It's why the draft became 5 rounds and several ownership groups didn't want one at all.
They went to just 5 rounds of draft because they don't want to pay the high signing bonuses for rounds 6 and later vs. the signing bonus for a free agent. They save a lot of money in a survival of the fittest amateur free agent pool.
They don't want to cut the number of minor league players, they want to consolidate the lower rungs of the pyramid to complex ball at the Florida and Arizona sites. For the Nats, that would mean no more half-season rookie squad in the NY-PEN League, and maybe not even a SAL team in Hagerstown. Everyone just plays in Florida for a few years until they're ready to move up to what's currently high-A ball. The players don't like the conditions at a lot of the stadiums - like the Nats endured at the Pfitz, which was worse than a lot of college facilities. Some rookie stadiums like Ripkin are nice, so Aberdeen would probably become a High A franchise for the O's or Nats or whoever.
It's about money, but there's no way guys go straight from college to the majors. The fact that teams go through 40-50 players a year also necessitates lower teams to simply store manpower in addition to honing skills.
Plus the fact that most players do not go to college at all but are signed straight from high school or from the academies in the DR and other international spots.
